the Slippery Slope
by AngelOfTheFlute
Summary: OK, so the Baudelaire orphans end up in NJ and go to fifth grade with me and my friend. But Count Olef is disguised as one of my teachers. It's just something fun to think about... R/R!
1. the fall

A/N: Review review review! I wanna know what you think after you read this. Also, I apologize that this story isn't in paragraphs. Microsoft won't let it upload with them.  
  
1  
  
Now, I'd better warn you before you turn this first woeful page: This melancholy story should not be read by young people, or any people if it were my choice. But it's not, so the only warning I can give you is now. Close this book and do not open it again.  
If you've ever been on a roller coaster, dropping from one hundred feet, that's how the Baudelaires felt as they flew downward in their wagon. or at least, two of them. Flew here doesn't mean they actually were flying. It simply means that they went very fast.  
"Turn it! Turn it somehow! That bump will surely-" Klaus shouted over the bumping wagon and the rushing air.  
"Can't!" Violet interrupted, also screaming. She wouldn't have normally cut off, here meaning speaking before he was finished instead of using a knife and sawing him open, her brother, but she knew there was no time. The gigantic precipice of rock was growing larger and larger in their vision as it seemed to run closer and closer. They couldn't turn. They couldn't reverse. They were doomed.  
"Nooo!" Klaus yelled as he and his sister were pitched off the bucking wagon as it crashed into the huge rock, stuck.  
"Amibieto!" Sunny shrieked from up above, where she was being forced up the mountain in another direction in a van with Count Olef and his assistants. "Amibieto." Meant something along the lines of: "Count Olef! Stop!" but he ignored her unintelligible cry and kept going. Her face turned white with fear as they fell away from her eyes. She gazed at them from the back window for what would probably be the last time. Even when her siblings had vanished from her sight, she clutched the back of the seat and stared at where they had been, looking, but not seeing.  
"Klaus! Grab something! Quick!" Violet's feet slammed into a ledge where she teetered with the impact, but kept her balance. She watched her brother hurtle down headfirst.  
"I'll try," he yelled, not able to look at her. His hand shot out to grab a large plant protruding from the side of the mountain.  
"Oh, no." Violet muttered. Being an inventor, she knew this would not work with Klaus. If Sunny bit it, maybe, but not Klaus. Violet turned pale as she watched it happen in slow motion, yet as with Klaus, nothing happened faster.  
His arm twisted. It twisted almost all the way around. Violet's faced, at that moment, was banished of all color, here meaning she was completely white with fear. Klaus groaned with the pain, and opened his hand over the plant. And he was falling once more. Down. Down. Down. Violet broke out in a sweat from where she speculated her brother and the distance to the ground, and she wasn't sure he would be okay. Down. Down. Down.  
  
A/N: Will Violet and Klaus survive? Where will they go and what will happen to them? Find out in chapter 2! (Otherwise just review, because that's how you get the next chapter. Hahahaha!) 


	2. the chase

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, ppl! This chapter is here because of them! So if you're reading this story and not reviewing, please start! No reviews, no next chapter.  
  
Disclaimer: Hmm. let's think. If I owned these people, do u honestly think I'd be writing on this fanfiction site.?  
  
2  
  
Have you ever been driving a car, and suddenly run over a beautiful young deer, and when you got out to see if it was okay, you couldn't tell at first? This is precisely what Violet felt as she knelt beside Klaus ten minutes later.  
"Klaus, are you okay?" she asked quietly.  
He stirred a little, rasping the word "yes" as if it were quite an effort.  
"Here," Violet empathetically offered her hand to Klaus and helped him up from his sprawled position upon the earth. "Let's get going."  
The two Baudelaires walked in silence for a long time, not knowing what there was to say. The sky was almost dark, and a chill crept through the air. The only sound was the grass, wet with dew, under their feet.  
"Where do you think she is?" Klaus asked abruptly, breaking the thoughtful silence. Violet did not need to ask "Who?" She already knew. She had been thinking the same thing.  
"I don't know, but I just hope she's safe." Violet replied. Klaus could detect a definite tone of worry in his sister's voice. It seemed to transfer, at the moment, into him as well. "All I know is we have to find her."  
"They wouldn't do anything to her yet. They need her to get our fortune. For now we need to worry about keeping ourselves alive. We need food." Klaus informed Violet, a word which here means told Violet with confidence.  
"Where can we get that?" Violet inquired. Klaus shrugged.  
"We'll just have to keep going this way." he answered thoughtfully.  
That seemed enough for both of them, and they elapsed into their own thoughts. They were so absorbed they didn't notice the pungent smell of fish wafting through the air, nor how the cold air was getting even colder, nor how the air was getting considerably breezier. They did, however, notice that something was changing as they walked, meaning they were growing closer to some kind of vital difference.  
"There's the answer to your question." Klaus muttered as the sounds of the seaside town cleared and increased in volume.  
"Let's rest before anything." Violet suggested, yawning. She could barely bare the gnawing hunger in her stomach, the fatigue was even stronger.  
"I suppose," Klaus agreed. "Even a park bench wouldn't be bad."  
That made them both stop a second to think about their past. Not so long ago, they would have looked at the speaker in disbelief if someone started talking about the pleasures of a bench like that. But then, they had had a mother and father, and all they could ask for. Bhey had been the rich Baudelaire family then. Now they were the poor Baudelaire orphans, not even of which were all united at the moment. Now was different.  
"Yeah, anything. I'm just not risking being split up with you like Sunny." Violet told him with a smile.  
"You know," Klaus said thoughtfully, as if he hadn't heard his sister's words. "Let's just rest here before we get in the middle of things. It will be harder then to get to sleep."  
"Good thinking." Violet yawned. She didn't even stop to think of what-ifs. They had started their journey well before dark, and now, the sky was the sleepy cold gray of a new day just about to dawn upon the world. She just found a mossy spot under the shelter of a treetop, and closed her eyes. Klaus did the same.  
Klaus was the first to wake up. The sky informed him that it was past noon, and the noises of the town were much louder than before. All the activity had moved from the body of water, whatever it was, to closer to the wilderness. He glanced at this activity, searching for a place to maybe get food, and for the first time, he smelled the fish and felt the breeze. And even more. He saw a dock and bay! He turned to his pretty sister to say something, but decided not to wake her. He sat with his back against a tree and waited, listening to the pleasant, conforting, familiar sounds of carpentry shops, crashing waves, children playing...  
Violet opened her eyes after about twenty minutes and Klaus rushed over.  
"Violet!" He said. "Look at the other end of the village! There's a bay!"  
"There's probably a restraunt near the dock!" Violet guessed.  
"We don't have any money." Klaus pointed out glumly.  
Violet brushed the hair out of her eyes and closed them in thought. She didn't take out the ribbon from her pocket to keep it out, because she usually only did that when thinking of an invention.  
"I could get a job." She suggested doubtfully, snapping her eyes back open.  
"But we can't wait weeks to get something to eat!" Klaus told her, dismayed.  
"True. I know! Let's go explore this place, and see if there's any markets or fruit stands giving away free samples." They sighed. That would not be enough. But what other choice was there? Klaus couldn't think of anything better, and they were desperate, so they both wearily stood up.  
"Hey! Where's the little one?" a sneering, sarcastic voice suddenly asked from behind them. Thirteen-year-old Klaus and fourteen-year-old Violet looked up in shock to see the speaker. "Get 'um!" the man yelled. He was broad with a mustache and beard.  
"Run!" Violet screamed. Faces were poking out from behind dwellings and trees. Stampedes were dashing out from every direction. Closer! Closer! Trapping them. The Baudelaires ran. They ran so fast they were barely blurs. They ran faster than ever before. Faster than they ever had in boarding school. They whizzed all the way to the dock before turning to see the men coming fast from the very back of the kids' lines of visions but getting closer.  
"Hide!" Klaus yelled. They frantically glanced around.  
"In there!" Violet commanded. She dove for the first thing they laid eyes on worthy of hiding two thin teenagers. It was a huge box full half- way with something, but the children, at the moment, didn't have the time to care what. Klaus grabbed for the top of the box and tried to peel up the flaps, but the box, of course, was shut tight.  
"Oh, no."  
"Klaus, quick!" Violet was so frantic that she spoke with exasperation at her younger brother unintentionally. "Sorry." She added in a mutter much like his own uttered words a few seconds earlier. Klaus did not answer as he tried to no avail to open the box enough to reveal a square about two feet of the contents within, not so he could see what it was, but so he and his sister could slip in and hide.  
"Klaus," Violet said in a quiet, shaky voice. Klaus looked up at her. In the background, he saw what seemed a conspiracy of villagers who held the belief that they were killers. But he was focusing on his sister. She was holding a sharp, triangular piece of glass in one hand. Klaus didn't need to ask "What?" to get the message. He dashed out a few feet and grabbed a slightly smaller piece for himself. Together, they started hacking quickly but neatly. Within seconds, they had revealed the inner section of the box. They leapt in in unison. Klaus secured the lid quickly, and then they both stayed completely motionless inside. They knew that if they moved one muscle. coughed one time, made one mistake, they would be discovered. and killed.  
  
A/N: Ooooh! I love suspense! Don't you? Too bad it will be hanging in the air forever because you're not reviewing it. 


	3. The Canoe

A/N: Wow! Third chappy finally up. I'm gonna need more feul, or in other words reviews, to keep going on. and I already have the fourth chapter written, too. You just have to write for it!  
  
Disclaimer: If I really have to waste my breath. I don't own anything except Sunny's helper person, anyone else I made up, and the plot. If this weren't true, this wouldn't be called a fanfiction, would it?  
  
3  
  
The engine revved and groaned as an old man does when ill. Count Olef uttered a curse under his breath and took a long swig from a beer can.  
Sunny sat quietly in the back seat, watching it all with disgust. She was tired, but didn't sleep; she was upset and frightened, but didn't weep. She was sick of being in the car, and most of all sick of the rotten murderer in the driver's seat who's head she was forced to look at. "The gas is low. You gotta stop and fill it." Sunny looked in surprise at the man who had spoken these words. She had never seen him in the troop before, and guessed he had joined during the carnival.  
"Let's all get out for a stretch." Suggested Olef. "While I fill the tank. Except you." He jerked his head toward the back seat.  
"I'll stay here," said the new assistant, the only one who hadn't plagued his body with alcaholic drink.  
"Suit yourself," grunted Olef absentmindedly. He opened the doors and the other villains piled out. When they were all gone, the one still with Sunny began to speak to her.  
"I'm going to help you out of here, Sunny Baudelaire," he told her quietly.  
"Grakkire!" Sunny shrieked, meaning something along the lines of: "Thank you. How so?"  
The young man didn't reply. Instead, he placed his foot on the gas pedal and shot them from the rest of the troop.  
"Mena!" Sunny shrieked as he shifted his body to the driver's seat. She meant something like: "Slow down!" but he didn't seem to get it and inquired:  
"Having fun?"  
After about an hour of zooming over bumpy roads in silence, the man slowed down.  
"Jiviar!" Sunny yelled, meaning something like: "river!"  
And she was right. In front of them was a huge, curving river with little canoes teathered to one side, waiting to be rented out. A man was pacing in a space between the car and the boats. As Sunny was occupied taking in the boats and the river, which to her was an ocean, the driver of the car got out to converse with the man who rented out the boats. Soon he came back and grabbed Sunny a little too hard. He sat her down in the nearest canoe and turned to leave. The last Sunny saw of him were his apologetic, droopy brown eyes and his thick black hair. Sunny suddenly felt an explosive firework of fear within her heart as she realized for the first time that she was alone in the world.  
  
A/N: I know; I know. Most of my other cliffhangers are better, aren't they. And this chapter isn't the best. But I can promise you chapter four is much better, so deal with it. Deal with it or review! Hahahahaha! 


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